Ugalde, Anna

Informal caregivers (referred to as caregivers within this article) play a significant part in enabling community-based models of cancer care and survivorship, whereby patients manage much of their disease and treatment outside of clinical settings. Caregivers are fundamental to healthcare in Australia, with a replacement value of $77.9 billion. Caregivers are a highly important group as they allow people diagnosed with cancer to remain at home and out of hospitals for longer than would have been possible without the caregivers involvement.

Background. To incorporate the spillover effects experienced by carers providing informal care in health policy decisions, new carer-related preference-based measures have been developed for use in economic evaluation, which include the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit for Carers (ASCOT-Carer), Carer Experience Scale (CES), and Care-Related Quality of Life (CarerQoL). The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which these 3 instruments measure complementary or overlapping constructs. Methods.

Objectives: To compare the psychometric properties of the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit for carers (ASCOT-Carer), the Carer Experience Scale (CES), and the Care-related Quality of Life (CarerQol) to inform the choice of instrument in future studies. Methods: Data were derived from a 2018 online survey of informal carers in Australia.

Objective To explore the experiences of cancer caregivers who live in rural Australia and travel to a metropolitan cancer health service to access cancer treatment. Design A qualitative study using semistructured, audio-recorded interviews conducted between December 2017 and July 2018 with caregivers and social workers. Thematic analysis using interpretative descriptive techniques performed on textual interview data within a critical realist paradigm to develop understanding of rural caregivers’ lived experiences.

Objective Informal caregivers provide substantial support for people living with cancer. Previous systematic reviews report on the efficacy of cancer caregiver interventions but not their potential to be implemented. The aim of this systematic review was to explore the potential for cancer caregiver interventions to be implemented into practice. Methods We searched three electronic databases to identify cancer caregiver interventions on 5 January 2018.

Background: Informal caregivers of people with motor neurone disease (MND) take on an extensive role. Caregivers are at increased risk of experiencing psychological distress and burden, yet, there is a lack of intervention programmes to support them.; Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of a therapeutic group intervention promoting self-care, problem-solving and mindfulness to informal caregivers of people with MND.; Design: Pilot study that utilised a one-arm pre- and post-design.

Informal carers are people who provide care without a specific professional role. They provide diverse caregiving supports including disease-related problems, side effects of treatment and psychosocial impacts. This paper reports on a comprehensive review of caregiving literature, focusing specifically on cancer caregivers. The paper presents five observations drawn from the literature in order to make recommendations about how caregivers of people with advanced cancer can best be supported.